Tuesday, 25 February 2020

Both L and I have geeky spreadsheets of all the races we’ve
done. L has been racing longer than me so she has done a lot more races than me.
She has done a massive 542 races in total compared with my meagre 282 but it
turns out that, out of my pitiful total, 91 of mine have been half marathons whereas
L has only done 88.

She has done 8 marathons though to my 3.I'm still playing catch up there and her enthusiasm for number 9 seems to be waning. .She says her
running Mojo appears to have up and left. I’ll have to hide her new hoover and
only tell her where it is once she’s done her run or I could lend her our
four legged Mojo He'd spur her on.

Instead Monday sees her out on the lash in Borrowash... and she’s out
late. It’s almost eight o’clock when she gets on the bus home.

Tuesday turns out to be glorious day for cycling... but for
reasons known only to me I don't. Well it was also a bit nippy.

Talking of nippy. L is still eyeing up outdoor swims. Brrr.
The latest one to take her fancy is the Jubilee River Swim in Windsor. It’s
10km long with three weirs on the route, which I’m sure they’ll make the swimmers walk
around and not go wa-hey over them. Even though L says ‘OMG I hope not!Doesn't it look great?’ Erm. If she says so.
I’ll hold her coat. She claims to have already been hardening herself
to the prospect with cold showers at our local pool.

Her latest PT session has her sprinting on a Watt bike. Now
that’s more like it.

Sunday, 23 February 2020

By Friday L is germ ridden. We’re pretty sure it’s just a
cold and not Coronavirus but am I going to have to take someone else to Berlin
next weekend? They might not even let her into the country.

A cruise ship called the Diamond Princess has been quarantined
off the coast of Yokohama in Japan after hundreds on board are infected. It is the
largest outbreak of the virus outside of China.

On Friday evening I have a match as Derby play Fulham and
then on Saturday it’s Parkrun. It will be my 99th and the plan is...
well firstly to find one that is still on by permission of Storm Dennis (or
actually I think we might be on to Ellen now, not that I noticed a gap). There
is a new Parkrun at Lichfield called Beacon but that seems to be off. Wollaton
isn’t on because they are hosting the National Cross Country Championships, so
we decide to play safe and go to Alvaston.

After parkrun we do head to Wollaton Park to have a look at
the Cross Country. This is hugely entertaining because the park is so
waterlogged and muddy. Sections of the course are knee deep in water\mud and it makes for great spectating.

On Sunday I return to Prestwold Hall for RunThrough's
Leicestershire Half Marathon. This is of course purely out of necessity and L
joins me in the race as well, out of necessity. To be honest it doesn't seem
quite as dull after doing it last year probably because I mow know what is coming and can mentally prepare for it.

The one thing that wasn’t quite so bad last year was the
wind, which is really hard to run against this year but it’s very nice when it’s
behind you and pushing you along. The effect of the wind is probably reflected in
my time of almost 1:49, four minutes slower than last year.

Then we head to my Brother’s lad’s 18th bithday
meal at the Joiner's Arms in Quarndon. I don’t think I’ve been before but
L says she’s been to a disco there when she was just a mere slip of a girl. Which
is not that long ago obviously. It’s all food now, and they do have some
decent beer, but sadly they don’t do a Sunday Lunch. The foods ok though. Everyone
has massive ice cream sundaes for dessert and can’t manage them which means I
end up trying to eat about four of them.

Thursday, 20 February 2020

They tell us to keep thoroughly washing our hands to avoid
contracting the Coronavirus, now given the name COVID-19 by the WHO, which is
all good advice and what we should be doing anyway. They also tell us not to
touch our faces which isn’t so easy. I mean, have you tried putting in contact
lenses without touching your face. Suddenly it takes far longer to get ready
for work in the mornings.

Sainsbury's are late sending out my new visa card and have
blocked my old card before the new one has arrived meaning I have to pay for
today’s shopping on a different card. This loses me about 90 Nectar points or
meagre 45p. I ring them up more to ask where the new card is rather than to complain about the lost points,
although I do have a small whinge, and they credit my
account with 18,000 points. That's about £90. So, it does pay to complain...massively.

I manage to cycle on Tuesday and it was hard work in the
still strong winds but then I am so unfit at the moment.

L skips running club saying that she doesn’t want to be faffing
around with doing intervals at the club now she’s a proper athlete and running from home will give her more hoover time even when it turns out to be
10k in the rain. I’ve never known anyone get so excited about a new hoover.

She's looking forward to a night on her own with her new gadget while the boys and I are at dog training. She's
never this keen to get alone with me...

On Wednesday she is London for work, which is another icy
morning. A day in London with her boss probably means another day of crap
eating. He’s the one who bought her four crème eggs and a bar of dairy milk for
lunch the other day. There’s none of your five a day in there and most of it
makes its way home to me where it goes in my not-so-secret secret drawer.

In the
evening I meet up with a friend of mine after work. Instead of going to the
pub, we meet at the Derby Winter Beer Festival at the Roundhouse.

On Thursday L does go to her club while I run from 14 miles
from work.

Sunday, 16 February 2020

On Friday they make a decision about Stamford and with
Yellow Weather Warnings of winds forecast to be over 40mph they postpone the
race to next week which rules us out. We have an 18th Birthday Party to attend,
my brother’s lad, and we’ve also entered the Prestwold Half which is much nearer
and an earlier start which means we can easily make the party.

We very briefly consider turning up on the day at the
Naseby 1645, that I did last year, which they promise will be on but will be
‘character building’ in the forecasted strong winds and driving rain. Of course, we might
turn up at Naseby and they cancel at the last minute.

L says she’d prefer to do her own thing on Saturday, as she
did last week, and then have a

night on the lash, as we did last week.Which is fine by me, then we both spend Valentine’s Night in the gym but not the
same one...

On Saturday we do the Wollaton Hall Parkrun which having
dodged Ciara last week also seems Dennis proof and attracts 461 runners. Daughter joins us and runs with MD meaning we don’t have to cope with the
conundrum of what to do with him. It is only five minutes’ walk from home but
we can’t leave him home alone because he’ll howl in distress, so we’d have to
drive over and pay to park the car just to keep him happy.

L does her 'own thing' by running an extra lap and then keeps running while Daughter
and I check out the cafe. It’s good to see that the cafe is tuned
into the potential to make money and opens at 9am rather than its usual 10am. It also now does breakfast baguettes before noon (don’t ask, I have no
idea...).

Then I head off to the match. After which Radio Derby
summariser Craig Ramage is sacked for singling out two of Derby’s black players
for criticism.

L completes 14k, does Pilates, then head off for
part two of her run, completing 16 miles in total. Very impressive. I am feeling totally upstaged
by the two girls, L and her sister, who are all doing bigger distances than me
in preparation for the Brighton Marathon.

So on Sunday I do my own training run and I run 15 miles with the
Lad. Who I think gets more than he bargained for. We WhatsApp a few photos as
we go, including one in front of the Robin Hood statue by the Castle where the Lad’s
cuteness leaves not a dry eye among the assembled tourists who are waiting to take their own selfie in front of the statue.

Thursday, 13 February 2020

Monday starts with some snow! Heavy snow! But then it’s gone
and we have rain. Heavy rain.

L’s shopping list to me is (she says) long, expensive but
healthy. Hash browns and curly fries are healthy? Who knew? And there’s
something called FF on there but she can’t remember what that’s short for. We hope
it's not vital and it sounds like some trendy brand of vodka. Then it comes to me, fish
fingers!

It’s still cold and yesterday’s rain has now turned the
pavements into ice rinks. I slither my way to the bus stop and only fall over
once. For which I suppose I should have had a week off work and sued the council even
though I’m fine.

It’s still windy too but I do my run. I manage 11k on
what feels like an outdoor treadmill e.g. I didn’t seem to be moving much due
to the wind.

Having lost one race last week to a moody Ciara, now we are
faced with her handing the baton over to Dennis who is showing that ‘hell hath
no fury like a’ man upstaged by a woman and it’s not looking very good for Sunday’s
Stamford 30k at the moment. The trouble with races these days is you don't know
whether you should be entering months in advance because they all seem to fill
up almost instantly. Then when you do, they get cancelled.

An email pops into my inbox offering me tickets for the
Ladies Final at Wimbledon through the ballot. They have finally moved into the
last century with their ballot, scrapped the old paper form that you had to send in
and now all you have had to do was click a box online. So I thought why not and
now I have the offer of Ladies Final tickets for only £400. I think not and
turn them down.

L’s sister gets a place in the Great North Run. L is gutted
because she was hoping she’d be able to hand hers over to her sister but now
she’ll have to run it as well.

On Wednesday L has PT and I have dogging. Then on Thursday I
manage to cycle to work and without needing any lights which is
an indication of how long it’s been since I last cycled.

Sunday, 9 February 2020

L’s pool seems to have found a few customers from somewhere,
mainly the tri club who she heard bragging about their events to each other.
Not that she was impressed, she’s done most of them.

Clifton Bridge on the ring road near us is closed after damage
was spotted on the underside of it. It is completely closed in one direction
and has only has one lane open in the other direction. Not good and I can’t see
any fast solution to this.

I take the bus to work on Friday, which went ok but coming
back is another matter. The traffic is hell because of the closures. I’m not sure what time I’ll get
home.

L meanwhile seems a bit impatient as she waits for me and is
threatening to start Friday night without me. This is because her personal
trainer has recommended that she starts foam rolling and she wants to give mine
a try tonight. I’d hate to miss out on that.

Meanwhile the world is beginning to get worried about a new
flu like virus, coronavirus, with has so far claimed over 800 lives in China. Our local GP surgery texts me today
saying that if I’d ‘recently returned from China or South East Asia and are
concerned that you may have a viral infection please DO NOT come down to the
surgery’. As I said, worrying.

Saturday sees the start of a new Parkrun at Wollaton Hall which
will be our new local but where are we? We’re at another new one at Doddington
Hall near Lincoln, which is on its third week. We’re on the way to
visit a old friend of mine who lives near Market Rasen. What with Warwick last week
as well, that’s a nice spot of tourism. We’ll do our new local next week. 603
turned up for the inaugural one.

We were actually supposed to be running on Wollaton Park on
Sunday but the Winter Warmer 10k has been postponed due to the arrival of Storm
Ciara, a troublesome female if ever there was one. Ciara’s tantrum somewhat rips
up the weekend’s planned schedule but it does mean we’re allowed out on Saturday
night. We pub crawl Sneinton, visiting the Neon Rapter Brewery tap for one, then
the Fox & Grapes for one, the King Billy for two and then visit Brewdog to
finish off.

Thursday, 6 February 2020

The race results from Watford have been corrected of their
own accord. The normal order of things in our household has now been restored.

The Golf’s dashboard has suddenly lit up like a Christmas
tree with warning lights. So, when L goes over to see her folks she takes the
bus, not wanting to go over in a dodgy car. There’s always the Astra I say. Oh,
she did say she didn’t want to go over in a dodgy car didn’t she.

I go over later to pick her up because I wanted to give the
Golf a run to see just how dodgy it was but somehow it fixes itself as those
wise folks on Google said it probably would.

L has her PT on Wednesday where she signs a contract
committing to 12 sessions. As she says, that’ll sort her out. After which, she manages
to walk home unaided but she may not be lifting pints
for a while.

Meanwhile L’s dentist convinces her to make the leap to an electric
toothbrush. Mine has been trying to convince me to have one for years along
with regularly seeing the hygienist, selling me floss and also those things you
put on the end of your fingers. Sometimes I’m not sure if he’s a dentist or a
salesman. He spends more time trying to sell me stuff than he does looking at
my teeth.

...and while she’s on a spending spree, she’s looking at hoovers
and asks ‘how does a girl go about getting a new hoover?’ How does a girl go
about getting anything new, shiny and expensive out of her man? But it’s not PC
to do that sort of thing any more, so she’d best just tell me what she wants and
I’ll get it ordered.

...and Daughter is searching for a skipping rope. I remember
once shopping for a skipping rope for her. It may have been a few years ago...
I think she may have been eight.

On Thursday L and I do a joint run, sort of. I start running
home from work while she starts running towards me from home. The plan is we’ll
meet somewhere along the way. The planned collision point is the Charlton Arms
in Chilwell. Not that we intend going in but it seems just about the right
distance as she wants to do about 8 miles while I’m going for the Full Monty
home which will be 15.6 miles. As planned, I bump into L just past the Charlton
Arms 11 miles in and we make it all the way home together.

Sunday, 2 February 2020

On Saturday we head over to the Parkrun at Warwick
Racecourse on the way to visit Son in Leamington. We meet him and his fiancée for
breakfast, this time at Coffee Architects which sounds a bit posh but aren’t
all the cafes these days. Posh of course means there are no prices on their
online menu.

It is conveniently two doors down from Misters Barbers which
is the chosen venue for the ceremonial trimming of Son’s wayward beard, the first in
living memory. It is indeed an historic day and it also seems to be a great
success, even with Son, and the aim is now to get another trim in before his
wedding at the end of next month.

Sunday sees us down south at the Watford Half Marathon which
has a very civilised start time of 10.30am. Which is a good job really as it's quite
a drive for us down to Watford.

It starts in Cassiobury Park which, given the recent
weather, is a soggy mess and the first challenge is not starting the race with
wet feet as we head to the Race HQ to pick our numbers up. Then it’s a paddle back to
one of the two start lines. These are colour coded Red and Blue with the
vague instruction that the Red one is for Veterans. Which I think means us.

The two starts are both on footpaths which merge together before
the race leaves the park. Getting a good start position is key because the
footpaths are narrow and the terrain either side of them is muddy and
unrunnable. So putting a foot off the footpath to overtake was unwise and tended
to see you sliding backwards rather than moving up through the field. This
meant it was difficult for me to latch on to one of the pacemakers and I watched
them gradually pulling away from me.

Once out of the park we headed out into suburbia where there
was at least scope to overtake even if my desired pacemaker was now long
gone. Then suburbia gave way to countryside where the real fun began. Now I
thought Watford was a flat part of the country, how wrong was I.

The race guide merely stated that the course is through
pleasant undulating countryside. Although it did go on to say that 'due to the
severity of some of the hills this course is not suitable for wheelchairs'.
Always read the small print as they say, even if you don't have a wheelchair. It was very hilly and just how hilly
seemed to come as a surprise to many, not just me, given that the hills
were accompanied by some colourful language (I mean encouraging words) from my fellow
runners.

Even when you get back to the park for the final mile, it is
largely all uphill. I finish in 1:48:45 marooned almost equally between the 1:45
and the 1:50 pacers. L and her sister come in together about 45 minutes behind
me although according to the results, when they come out later, she beat me by
about five minutes. Perhaps I missed the shortcut.